Separate and Equal is about a hypothetical basketball game between black and white teens in segregated Birmingham in 1951, which was illegal at the time. It explores what that meeting could have been like and reflects on current race relations.

Panitch developed it with Lawrence Jackson, a choreographer and UA assistant professor of dance.

“The audience will sit around the stage like they’re at an actual basketball game,” Panitch said. “The actors play a basketball game within the play. The basketball is done through music and dance to be more visceral and expressive.

“I’m using the movement of basketball to express how African Americans and whites have interacted over the past 50 years. So, it’s a play about communication and lack of communication through the lens of segregation.”